1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer and more particularly to a printer and a printing method for performing printing on a long rolled tape member as a printing member.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, there are printers for preparing arbitrary labels by printing character strings on a tape member based on character data inputted from a keyboard or received from other equipment.
Additionally, in some of tape members for use in such printers, a label can be prepared using a printing tape carrying a release tape which is provided thereon in advance, and in other tape members, a label can be prepared using a printing tape carrying an adhesive applied to a back surface thereof without carrying a release tape. Then, depending upon printers, these tape members can be used therein as required.
For example, KOKAI (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication) No. 2010-167701 discloses a printer in which whether or not a release tape is present on a tape member which is fed out of a tape cassette is detected by an optical sensor and in case no release tape is detected, a half-cutting treatment by a half-cutting mechanism is disabled.
However, when a tape member having no release tape but having an adhesive is left mounted as it is in a printer for a long period of time, there are fears that a conveyor roller and the tape member are secured to each other by the adhesive and when the conveyance of the tape member is attempted to be restarted in the next printing operation, the conveyor roller and the tape member do not separate from each other, causing a tape jam in an interior of the printer.